LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) scholarships are currently owned by 4 ministries: Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education; Ministry of Research and Technology and Higher Education; and Ministry of Religion. The Ministry of Finance has set a target to award 4,500 scholarships recipients of Master’s Degree and PhD holders in 2016. LPDP President Director – Eko Prasetyo said the scholarships would be awarded to candidates who had selected study programs which relevant to the Indonesia’s priority areas.

LPDP has three (3) focus priority areas. The first priority areas are Maritime, Fisheries, Agriculture, Energy & Renewable, Food Security, Creative Industry and Education. For the second priority areas are Education Management, Transportation Technology, Defence & Security Technology, Information Technology and Communication, Health and Medicine Technology. Then, the third priority areas are Environmental Studies, Religion, Vocational, Islamic Finance, Language or Culture, Applied Science, International Business Law.

In addition to scholarships for master's degree and doctorate, LPDP also provides theses and dissertations scholarships, medical specialisation scholarships, affirmation scholarships, as well as a President’s scholarships program at the universities in Indonesia and abroad.

Source: Republika online, http://www.republika.co.id/berita/pendidikan/dunia-kampus/15/11/10/nxlih...

Commentary:

LPDP scholarship is for Indonesian students (open to all members of the public including academics) who would like to pursue Masters or Doctoral programmes in Indonesia or abroad. A list of preferred destination universities is updated each year and is based on the world’s top 200 universities. However, the LPDP has been open to arguments about subject specialisms and quality courses in institutions that do not feature in the top 200 universities (based on QS, THE and Shanghai ranking systems).

Moreover, 30% ‘affirmative action’ scholarships have been rolled out to help less privileged students, particularly outside of Java, to access international Higher Education. Such students may apply for any overseas university as long as the university in question ranks higher than any Indonesian university.

At the moment, UK is still the most popular study destination for Indonesian students and receives the largest number of LPDP scholars. Until August 2015 the number of LPDP scholars studying in the UK is nearly 1000 students.

Further information: http://www.lpdp.kemenkeu.go.id/en/